How and why did my Tree of Life grow the way it did?

Date:   4/12/2005 9:03:55 AM ( 19 y ago)

"Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita
mi ritrovai per una selva oscura,
ché la diritta via era smarrita."

"Midway on our life's journey, I found myself
In dark woods, the right road lost."
--Dante, from the Divine Comedy

I am feeling intensely sad
about "My Poor Tree.'
I look at the lives of dear friends
at my 40th High School Reunion.

Some are married,
some are lawyers.
They seem so emotional happy,
many of them.

Some are here with their wifes.
Some speak of children.

One woman is are with her mother
and her daughter.

I wish I could get inside some of
the lives of some of these fellow graduates
from the class of '65 Fairfax High School.

If I could only get inside, maybe I could
feel, touch, sense, taste,
how there trees grew the way they did,
and mine the way mine did.

How is it that some of them
graduated high school,
went on to college,
and then naturally entered
their lives, earning income,
getting married, having children,
partaking of the fruits that come
from conventional living in a sense.

Why did my tree grow the way it did?
How did I get lost in the woods
so very young, and what can I
do now to reclaim my full life.

I am 57.
Sometimes I feel so young,
I can imagine still marrying and
having a child.

I imagine making a baby
with a woman I love.
I imagine, allowing the seeds
to connect,
the heat, the expression
of bodies.

I imagine the experience
of the physicalness of her body
going through changes,
her belly getting full,
being with her,
being one with her,
having my hand on her belly
as it rises month to month
and we both speak to the baby.
I can feel her temperature warm
in the early morning through her
flannel hightgown.
I can feel her saying she
can feel movement inside of her,
and I am celebrating this new life
within her and within me.

I could have been a good father.
I could have given a child some of
the immense love that I give to the garden
and other kinds of seeds;
tnat I have given to so many
massive projects to help humanity,
some that are still on shelves stillborn.


I can think of one of the great creative geniuses
of our time, a dear friend, William.
He had three little ones who are now
all married. He had to learn how to support
his family. I think that that kind of pressure
breeds success in some. I know it did William.
He had to succeed, and he did.

I am not sure I will ever, ever
get out of this life happy,
unless I have these experiences
that are so basic to life.

The mother of the daugher with the child
looks at me and hears me say,
I feel sad i never married.

She says it is never too late.

6:58 AM
April 12 05



BACKGROUND INSPIRATION

Do you feel
“Lost in the Woods”?

Ahi quanto a dir qual era è cosa dura
esta selva selvaggia e aspra e forte
che nel pensier rinova la paura!

Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita
mi ritrovai per una selva oscura,
ché la diritta via era smarrita.

In the middle of the journey of our life
I found myself in a dark wood,
for the straight way was lost.

Ah how hard to say what a harsh
 thing was that wood savage and rough and hard
that to think about it renews the fear!


“Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy is said to be the single greatest epic poem of all time.
I want to say that your life as well is intended to be the single
greatest epic poem for you. We are each on a journey. The goal is
to piece our lives together.


Divine Comedy

“Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy is said to be the single greatest epic poem of all time.
The opening story of the character of Dante the Pilgrim is told in the first of the three divisions:
The Inferno. The Inferno is a description of Dante’s journey down through
Hell and of the several degrees of suffering and many mythical creatures
that he encounters on the way.
Throughout his travel Dante displays many different feelings
and actions but the emotion that summarizes the entire poem is fear.
While some of his character traits change as his mind matures
and acknowledges the justice being carried out, from the very beginning
until the final Canto, his fear does not subside.
This does well to reinforce the symbolism of Dante as Everyman
and serves to direct the reader to the moral purpose of Divine Comedy,
because of the humility and dependence upon God that fear produces.
In the first Canto, which serves as an introduction to the entire comedy,
Dante encounters the three beasts which impede his progress out of the dark woods.
Coming upon the She-Wolf he writes: "This last beast brought my spirit down so low /
with fear that seized me at the sight of her, / lost all hope of going up the hill" (I.52-54).
Dante is so shaken by the appearances of the three beasts
that he rushes headlong into the dark woods he has just come out of.
This is only the first obstacle Dante encounters, but it proves an insurmountable one.

http://www.123helpme.com/assets/13392.ht\

TRANSLATION  B: PINSKY

Midway on our life's journey, I found myself
In dark woods, the right road lost. To tell
About those woods is hard --
so tangled and
    rough
And savage that thinking of it now, I feel
The old fear stirring....

TRANSLATION A : CIARDI

Midway in our life's journey, I went astray
from the straight road and woke to find myself
alone in a dark wood. How shall I say
what wood that was! I never saw so drear,
so rank, so arduous a wilderness!
Its very memory gives a shape to fear.
      


http://www.nvcc.edu/home/vpoulakis/Translation/dantetr1.htm

Explanation of Dante’s Inferno

http://www.sparknotes.com/poetry/inferno/section1.html

Trees are part of the figurative landscape that Dante
used in his opening lines of the Inferno:

 
Midway upon the journey of our life
I found myself within a forest dark,
For the straightforward pathway had been lost.
Ah me! how hard a thing it is to say
What was the forest savage, rough, and stern,
Which in the very thought renews the fear.
So bitter is it, death is little more.

 

The expression "lost in the woods" is right out of Dante i
n using the tangle of tree growth to symbolize our inability to go forward and straight.

http://www.frostfriends.org/tutorial-5.html

___
This is where you will find the story of my 30th High School ReUnion
that begins this series about a Radical Healing surrounding my 40th ReUnion:
http://curezone.com/blogs/m.asp?f=92&i=120


 

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